Entry 1-3/14/07
1. What are some of the previous research projects you have done?
2. Based on these projects, what does research mean to you?
3. Describe one of your research successes or failures. Why was the experience positive or negative?


1. Well in six grade we did a Wild Wild West Project, in 8th grade we did a labyrinth project.
2. research to me means looking up information to find an answer to a question.
3. I think that my Wild Wild West project was a success and it was positive because the skit was fun.

Teacher Response March 15

I placed the gray line where it is supposed to be, at the end of your response. It does not go in the middle.
I am happy that you enjoyed the wild west project.
Your grade is 7/10.
Mrs. D


2 - Reflection on Webbing Process (due Fri, Mar 16)
1. I think the webbing process helped/did not help me find a topic because:
3 - Why I Chose This Topic and What I Know About My Topic (due Fri, Mar 16)
1. Topic:
2. Why you chose it:
3. What you already know about your topic:
1. I think the webbing process helped me because it made me think what i would like to learn more about. It made me give more thought to what was going to be a fun research project, and it gave me a broad range of choices.

1. My topic is the Vikings.
2. The reason I chose this topic is because I wanted to learn how the Vikings lived and how they accomplished so many victories during their raids; plus it seemed to be the most interesting of my 4 choices.
3. I know they are famous from being cruel and destructive and they came from the country Scandinavia. This is also one of my reasons why I chose this topic.

Teacher Response March 16
Your grade is 20/20.

4 - Pre-Notetaking Activity - in class (due Tue, Mar 20)
1. Brainstorm a list of questions related to your topic.

5 - Reflections on Pre-Notetaking - for homework (due Tue, Mar 20)
1. Describe how the pre-notetaking sheet helped you find both focus for your topic and research questions to investigate. Did you find it easy or difficult to create a fat question from your ideas?
Where did the Vikings settle? -Skinny question
What kind of money did the Vikings have? -Skinny question
When did the Vikings live, what time period? - Skinny question
What was the Vikings culture like? -Fat question
What type of government system did they have? -Fat question
What did they use for most of their traveling? - Skinny question
What things are they famous for? -Fat question
What were there beliefs? -Skinny question
Did they celebrate holidays? –Skinny question
What did they do in their leisure time? - Skinny question
What was there social hierarchy system? – Skinny question
1. I actually found it easy because I already knew what would be a good fat question and what I wanted to learn about. It helped me focus on what the other things inside of culture I needed to find out to answer my fat question.

Teacher Response March 20 - Interesting topic! 20/20


6 - Search Log (due Wed, Mar 21)
1. What have I learned today?
2. What problems have I had?
3. How will I overcome the problem(s)?
4. What will I do next?

1. I have learned today that the Vikings settled on the pennisula of Scandinavia. They also came from other countries like Denmark, but the Scandinavian pennisula was made of the countries Norway and Sweden.

2. The problems I have encountered were when using some databases I was unable to find what I was primarily looking for. This made my researching process on the Vikings quite difficult.

3. I overcame this problem by using only Encylopedia Brittanica and using World Book Online. I will overcome other problems to come by simply searching deeper and deeper into the databases.

4. Next, I will try to finish answering more of my skinny questions until I have a sufficient amount of knowledge to write down my answer to my fat question.

Teacher Response March 21 - encyclopedias can be great ! 10/10.


7 - Search Log (due Thur, Mar 22)
1. What have I learned today?
2. What problems have I had?
3. How will I overcome the problem(s)?
4. What will I do next?

1. I learned about the Viking Age. The Viking Age was a period of time when the population of Scandinavia grew rapidly. Scandinavians also built better ships that allowed them to travel further than ever. With the increase of this population, farmland grew less available forcing more Vikings to seek a new habitat outside of Scandinavia.
2. I have had problems answering some of my skinny questions.
3. I will overcome this this problem by using more advanced specific searches for these questions.
4. Next I will find out how their social hiearchy worked.

Teacher Response March 22 - Advanced searchers are great! 10/10.

8 - Search Log (due Fri, Mar 23)
1. What have I learned today?
2. What problems have I had?
3. How will I overcome the problem(s)?
4. What will I do next?

1. I learned today about the Vikings housing, the law, raiding,art, and Yule. Yule was a holiday that is said to be on the same day that we celebrate Christmas(the day Christ was born).
2. I have had problems trying to take small bits of information for my note cards. I found many things I just needed to know how to take it and shorten it or paraphrase.
3. I will have skim more carefully and be sure to find the most important part of the information.
4. Next I will go back and take some of the stuff I found and go back to try to paraphrase the information.